Falling For A Cowboy. Karen Rock

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      “Amberley!”

      Her mother and the doctor rushed to help, and she balled her hands at her sides.

      Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

      You may not have much, but you still have your pride.

      A few minutes later, they were out the door and in her mother’s pickup. The warm June air flowed through her cracked-open window as they drove home. She picked out the scent of Smokey’s barbecue, sweet and tangy, and pictured the crispy, white-and-red awning and blue-covered picnic tables instead of the passing color smear.

      Would she ever see it again?

      No.

      Another loss, one of the many ahead to grieve. Her future rose black and immutable, her past a cemetery filled with everything she once loved and now lost.

      “Listen, sweetheart, I’m going to be with you every step of the way. Don’t worry.”

      “I don’t want to be taken care of.”

      The faint twang of a country song crooned through the radio. “No,” her mother said gently. “I suppose you don’t. You never did.”

      Amberley let out a breath. “I love you, Ma. It’s just that I need not to need you right now.”

      “Of course.”

      They rode a while more in silence. Amberley dropped the back of her head to her seat and shut her eyes. When the air turned thick with pine scent, she imagined them crossing out of town and onto the highway that led to their home, a small log cabin with a deep porch that her father had built himself.

      What would her dad say to her now?

      He’d be so let down.

      Sorry, Daddy.

      Three more turns and the truck bounced on rough track. When the right side dipped, she imagined the ruts that marked the halfway point up her packed-dirt drive. Then her mother pulled to a stop and Amberley jerked open the door.

      “I’m going to bed,” she called once she found the porch banister and stepped up the stairs.

      “Shoot!” her mother exclaimed behind her.

      Amberley stopped and turned—a pointless gesture since she could make out only her mother’s tall, thin shape. She pictured the narrow oval of her face, the long brow and upturned nose that’d always given her comfort as a child. Her heart squeezed. She’d never see her mother’s face again.

      This was real.

      Not temporary.

      Not fixable.

      Forever.

      The porch step creaked, and her mother’s soft hand fell on Amberley’s wrist. “I completely forgot. We have company coming for supper.”

      “I’ll just stay in my room. Tell them I have a headache.” A deep ache now clawed her brain.

      Her mother guided her up to the porch, then paused by the front door. In the distance, chickens squawked and the American flag atop a flower bed’s pole snapped. The warm wind carried the scent of newly blooming wildflowers. “I don’t think he’ll accept that.”

      “Why?” she asked through a yawn. Her heavy-lidded eyes closed. Sleep. She just wanted to sleep and not wake up for a long, long time.

      Or ever.

      “It’s Jared.”

      * * *

      “JARED!”

      Jared Cade waved at a former high school buddy, then swept chalk over the tip of his pool stick. “What’s up, Red?”

      “Not much.” Red clomped over in heavy boots, hitching up drooping work pants, a faint burnt odor preceding him. His short auburn hair stuck up around his smudged face.

      “Phew.” Lane, one of their Saturday night poker buddies, wrinkled his long nose. “You come straight here from a cookout?”

      A couple of the guys guffawed at their long-standing joke with the lone firefighter in their group. Many worked on ranches or in rodeo and gathered at this pool hall most nights.

      From corner-mounted speakers, a George Strait tune blared. Pictures of local and state sports teams covered every inch of the wood-paneled walls, jockeying for space. Jared had signed a few of them, he recalled, eyeing a framed eleven-by-sixteen photo behind the cash register. It featured his senior year, record-breaking catch during a state division championship.

      One thing he liked best about Carbondale, he’d always be its hero.

      “Just finished toasting marshmallows on I-77,” Red drawled, referring to the location of a small wildfire that’d broken out over the weekend. He lifted a finger and waved it in a circle, signaling the waitress for a round of drinks. “What can I get you fellas?”

      “I’ve got this,” Lane insisted. “Plus, it’s my turn to buy.” He turned to Jared, eager to please, a fan of Jared’s since high school. “Another beer?”

      He shook his head, then eyed the striped balls remaining on the pool table. “Heading out to Amberley’s in a minute.”

      Roseanne, the pool hall owner’s daughter and part-time waitress, hustled over. She laid her hand on his arm and peered at him beneath lashes so long he guessed they were either fake or she was an alien.

      “You goin’ to hear Back Country play at The Barnsider next weekend?”

      His lips curved into a smile at the flirty look she shot him. She was short and thin and kind of twitchy, filled with the kind of restlessness that set her earrings swinging. A long sweep of cropped platinum hair fell in her face—pale with clean quick features, eyes covered in a haphazard blue.

      Roseanne no longer interested him, exactly, seeing as how they’d already been out a couple of times and that’d gone nowhere, but he wouldn’t turn his nose up at the attention.

      “Could be.”

      “I might be goin’,” she said, coy.

      “That a fact?” he answered lightly, shooting for a tone that was friendly but not encouraging.

      His brothers, and especially his younger sister, Jewel, teased him mercilessly about his “girl problem,” calling him lady-killer or heartbreaker. But the women, they came to him. He never aimed to hurt anybody. Just wanted to keep things light. Fun. No strings roping down this cowboy. If they got their hearts broke, well, he did feel bad about that, but he’d never done it intentionally. That would have required him to put effort into it, which, like most things in life, he didn’t since everything came kind of easily to him. Sports, friends, ladies’ hearts...

      Roseanne finished taking drink orders, snapped her pad closed and turned to him again. “Wouldya like to go with me? If we get too drunk, we could just crash at my place after.”

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